Opera’s lowest male voice type is used to explore the best and worst in human nature, from murderous villainy to benign wisdom. Here are some of our favourite examples of bass roles from more than two centuries of opera and what makes them so impressive:

Zoroastro – whom Handel’s anonymous librettist loosely modelled on the Persian sage Zoroaster – is the voice of reason in this opera of insanity and unruly passions. From his commanding opening aria ‘Lascia amor’ onwards, Zoroastro attempts to persuade the unstable hero Orlando to give up his unreciprocated passion for Angelica and return to deeds of valour. Being a wise magician, he eventually succeeds, and in Act III expresses his joy in one of the most jubilantly virtuoso arias in the bass repertory, ‘Sorge infausta’.

Inspired by Handel, Mozart created his own Zoroaster-inspired sage in Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte/The Magic Flute), whose arias ‘O Isis und Osiris’ and ‘In diesen heil’gen Hallen’ are among opera’s noblest. The bullying harem-keeper Osmin is altogether different: his blustering aria ‘Solche hergelauf’ne Laffen’ and drunken duet ‘Vivat Bacchus!’ (both using ‘Turkish’ percussion), his futile attempts to control the spirited character Blonde and his bravura Act III rondo ‘O, wie will ich triumphieren’ (which is a must-hear due to its use of one of the lowest notes in the bass register) make him one of opera’s greatest comic villains.

Méphistophélès’s charm, wit, and chocolate-rich bass voice – shown to best advantage in such episodes as his demure Act I entrance, zestful Act II aria ‘Le veau d’or’ and dapper seduction of Marthe Schwertlein in the Act III quartet – give him a demonic appeal. His underlying viciousness comes to the fore in his sardonic Act IV serenade to Marguerite and in the terrifying Act V trio – but this doesn’t stop us feeling that in Faust the devil has the best tunes!

Philip II’s evolution from authoritarian ruler to suffering husband makes him perhaps Don Carlo’s most interesting character. Until the end of Act III we are inclined to dislike Philip for his tyrannical behaviour towards his wife and son. However, in his aria ‘Ella giammai m’amò!’, with its haunting introduction for solo cello, Philip laments his loneliness and his loveless marriage with a dignity, sorrow and resignation that arouse our sympathies, and that the bass voice’s rich, dark timbre makes all the more poignant.

Wagner uses the sonorous richness of the bass voice to convey the wisdom and benign nature of the veteran Grail Knight Gurnemanz. This part requires tremendous stamina – Gurnemanz is on stage for the whole of the two-hour Act I and 90-minute Act III, and has several lengthy monologues. But the beauty of his music, particularly the sublime ‘Good Friday’ monologue, makes the effort more than worthwhile.

Strauss pulls off a near-impossible feat in his first great comedy, and creates a character who is as appealing as he is comically repellent. Ochs’s loutish entrance in Act I, boorish behaviour towards Sophie in Act II and sleazy seduction scene in Act III make us thoroughly glad when he gets his comeuppance. And yet, his warm bass voice, exuberance and the lilt of his favourite waltz in Act II give him a certain charm.

Bartók offers an unconventional reading of the Bluebeard story, presenting Bluebeard not as a murdering psychopath, but as a fiercely private man, who appears to love his new wife Judith but hesitates to reveal his secrets to her. Bluebeard’s mysterious vocal style – predominantly plain declamation, but with passages of tender lyricism, particularly in the heartrending final scene – makes him one of opera’s most fascinating enigmas. It is up to each singer of the role to decide how villainous, or how noble, he might be.

There’s no doubting the villainy of Boris Ismailov, who scolds his daughter-in-law Katerina in growling tirades, dreams of seducing her to the sounds of a sleazy waltz, brutally attacks her lover Sergey and terrifyingly returns after his death to haunt Katerina. And yet, one can’t wholly despise Boris Ismailov. As John Tomlinson, one of the role’s greatest interpreters, has remarked: ‘Boris… is completely unredeemable… but there’s something admirable about the sheer energy of the guy’.

Claggart is another great bass villain – the low, hollow sound of his voice make his mixture of brutality and Machiavellian cunning particularly terrifying. He’s not one-dimensionally evil though: his great Act I monologue ‘O beauty, handsomeness, goodness’ – which Britten’s librettist E.M. Forster considered the most ‘important piece of writing’ in the libretto – conveys emotional confusion and loneliness as well as a nihilistic compulsion to destroy what is good.

Schoenberg movingly portrays Moses’s inarticulacy by writing his part entirely in growling, halting Sprechstimme (half-song, half-speech), while casting his articulate but untrustworthy brother Aron as a mellifluous lyric tenor. But the dramatic intensity and psychological complexity of Moses’s part more than compensates for its limited melodic content, particularly in the final soliloquy, which ends with the heart-breaking words ‘O Wort, du Wort, das mir fehlt!’ (O Word, you Word that I lack!).

Traditional music has always featured in classical works, from ballad opera’s popular songs to the Croatian tunes in Haydn’s string quartets. But it was from the 19th century onwards that opera composers developed a particular interest in national and folk music, using it both to explore other cultures and to celebrate their own countries’ traditions.

For the 19th-century Russian composers known as the ‘Mighty Handful’, traditional music was a vital part of the new style of opera they planned to create, celebrating their country’s history and folklore. Musorgsky expresses the Russian people’s loyalty through the popular folksong ‘Slava Bogu’ in Boris Godunov’s Coronation Scene. In Prince Igor, Borodin quotes a vast array of Russian folk tunes; he also consulted a Hungarian traveller on how to make the opera’s Polovtsian scenes sound appropriately ‘Eastern’. Rimsky-Korsakov meanwhile collected more than a hundred Russian folksongs, mastering their style so well that the original ones he wrote for his operas were sometimes mistaken for authentic traditional songs.

In Carmen, Bizet uses traditional music to a different end – not to celebrate his own culture, but to depict a mysterious foreign one, associated almost entirely with the gypsy heroine. Carmen’s opening Habanera (based on a popular 19th-century Spanish song that Bizet wrongly believed to be a folk tune), vibrant Seguidilla and exuberant ‘Danse Bohémienne’ use melodies spiced with chromatic twists and lively Spanish dance rhythms to characterize her as sensual, exotic – and very different from the other characters, who sing in a more conventional operatic style.

Puccini went further in Madama Butterfly, using traditional Japanese music – ten songs in all, sourced from a book of Japanese folk music – to depict not only his vulnerable heroine but also her environment. However, his main focus is always on Butterfly, and the conflict between East and West embodied in her ‘marriage’ to Pinkerton. He highlights the couple’s differences from their first appearances: while Pinkerton enters with a forthright, ‘Western’-sounding aria that includes a quote from ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, Butterfly arrives to a delicate setting of the Japanese folksong ‘The Lion of Echigo Province’. As the opera progresses and Butterfly’s situation worsens Japanese music increasingly dominates the score, culminating in Act III’s ritual suicide.

Puccini returned to Eastern traditional music some twenty years later with Turandot, sourcing Chinese music from a musical box and a book of traditional songs. In this opera, however, national music is used to create an exotic fairytale ambience rather than depict a personal tragedy. It is also primarily associated with ritual: Turandot arrives in Act I to the Chinese folksong ‘Mo Li Hua’ (Jasmine Flower), while Emperor Altoum makes a grand entrance in Act II to the Ancient Imperial Hymn.

The opera composer perhaps most associated with traditional and folk music is Janáček. A dedicated folklorist, he used his studies of the traditional music of Moravia (now the Czech Republic) to create original versions of Moravian folk music for operas such as Jenůfa with its dances and wedding songs, and The Cunning Little Vixen with its rustic animal rituals. Nor did he limit himself to his native country’s music. His two ‘Russian’ operas draw movingly on traditional Slavic music, from the playfully amorous folksongs of the young lovers Varvara and Kudrjáš in Kát’a Kabanová to the exquisite orchestral folksongs expressing the prisoners’ nostalgia for their past lives and the outside world in From the House of the Dead. Janáček’s wonderful operas show what a rich source of operatic inspiration folk music can be, both in the depiction of individual characters and in the creation of vivid environments.

Shocked by a ludicrous death? Amazed by an unexpected performance? Caught off-guard by a live broadcast while channel-flicking? Love it or hate it, there's something unforgettable about experiencing an opera for the first time.

We encouraged our Twitter followers to indulge in a moment of nostalgia and tell us how they got hooked on opera — or how they learnt to love it — be it live on the Covent Garden stage, or further afield. We were not disappointed.

@TheRoyalOpera my first experience was WOZZECK at 19. life-changing. decided in that moment that I'd become an opera scholar (& I did!)

With such a variety of productions taking place every Season, each requiring its own list of essential on-stage items, there’s no such thing as a typical day in the Royal Opera House Prop Making department. The team are not just artists, but sculptors, engineers and welders, tasked with making bespoke items to complete the magical world we see on stage. So what techniques do they use to make these props, both realistic and fantastical? It depends on the brief, but certainly latex, polystyrene and paint are a prop maker’s best friends – along with a healthy dollop of imagination.

A colossus of the props world

Where do you draw the line between prop and scenic art? The tree from The Winter’s Taleblurs the line, and holds the record for the biggest item built by the Prop Making department. At nine metres high and 11 metres wide, it had to be created in two pieces and put together for the first time backstage at Covent Garden, where the prop makers finally saw it in its full glory. As if building this mammoth tree wasn’t a big enough job, each trinket that hangs from its branches was also handcrafted.

It’s a dog’s life

These lovable (if terrifyingly massive) canines started out as polystyrene sculptures, which were then used to create plaster moulds. They were brought to life in fibreglass and had their moment in the spotlight in the Larry King scene in Anna Nicole.

Food, glorious food

An extravagant fake food banquet was created for Verdi’s opera Falstaff, included meat, vegetables, salad, cakes, desserts and even prawn cocktails. To create this tantalizing roast meat feast our prop makers used real food covered in plaster to make moulds. The ensuing latex potatoes and Yorkshire puddings were then carefully arranged and painted to give their realistic appearance.

It’s all in the detail

When it comes to turning inedible materials into mouthwatering morsels, it’s fair to say there are no hard and fast rules. After experimenting with different techniques, there was only one way to make this polystyrene piece of meat from Falstafflook like it was fresh out of a roasting pan: melted bubble wrap, creating the fatty, cooked finish. This delicious hunk of ham was even ‘flavoured’ with real cloves, covered in glue to stop them rotting.

Horsin’ around

Although real-life horses have famously trodden the boards of the Royal Opera House, for Don Quixote a metal horse was custom-built by our prop makers. They engineered a special mechanism so that when wheeled, the horse appeared to be walking. The metal structure was covered in cloth tape to hold the materials that created the hairy look of the horse – the perfect shaggy steed for the hapless Don Quixote.

A carriage fit for a queen

It was time to get the welding tools out to create this spectacular carriage for the 50th anniversary revival of Gloriana. The props team welded metal a metal frame together all the way up to the finials, and then added the finishing touch with hundreds of cloth flowers.

Hero with a thousand faces

To make these masks for Parsifal, the props team created a clay model of soprano Angela Denoke’s face, based on a photograph. They were then able to create a mould, which was then filled again and again with a special expanding foam, from which the identical faces emerged over a three week period.

So next time you’re at the opera or ballet, spare a thought for the props, and the sheer amount of time, thought and latex that’s gone into them.

Verdi forged a new operatic tradition when he made the lead character of Il trovatore a mezzo-soprano. In a letter to librettist Francesco Maria Piave, the composer described Azucena as the principal role, the one that (if he were a prima donna!) he would wish to sing. Verdi’s decision would have exciting consequences not only for his operas but for the art form as a whole.

The term ‘mezzo-soprano’ was first used in the early 18th century to describe female voices placed between the increasingly high-lying soprano and the low, dark-hued contralto. For years it was rarely used. Handel’s lower female parts are mostly for contralto, while Mozart’s lead female roles were all written for soprano – even ones such as Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), now usually sung by mezzos.

With the decline of castratos early in the 19th century, mezzos began to take on heroic young male roles, such as Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. A number of exceptional mezzos were also muses for bel canto composers – singers such as Isabella Colbran, who created the title role in Rossini’s La donna del lago. But sopranos still dominated – it wasn’t until Verdi’s 17th opera that he put a mezzo in the spotlight.

Azucena was worth the wait. The role presents exciting dramatic challenges, and also provides a chance to show off the characteristic wide range of the mezzo-soprano voice. Azucena’s first interpreter, Emilia Goggi, was a former soprano, and Verdi contrasts dramatic low-lying passages with thrilling forays into the high register, in a part that covers more than two octaves. Small wonder that Azucena remains a dream role for many singers.

It was more than a decade until Verdi returned to the mezzo voice, but with Eboli (Don Carlo) and Amneris (Aida) he created two mezzo-soprano roles equal in stature to the operas’ soprano heroines. In both cases, Verdi uses the mezzo’s rich timbre and wide range to depict sensual and troubled young women. They are among his most fascinating characters, and both inspired Verdi to create wonderful music, such as Eboli’s flamboyant ‘Veil Song’ and ‘O don fatale’ and Amneris’s anguished Act IV soliloquy.

Verdi was not the only composer to realize the mezzo-soprano’s potential. Berlioz wrote most of his lead roles for this voice type, as he preferred its rich timbre to the brighter soprano. Bizet and Massenet put the mezzo’s dark, warm timbre to varied uses, with the sensual gypsy Carmen and the motherly Charlotte in Werther. In Russia, mezzo-sopranos often played sensual, energetic female characters, who contrasted with innocent soprano heroines, as with Lyubasha and Marfa in The Tsar’s Bride.

By the 20th century, the growing bank of mezzo roles had produced more star mezzo singers. These singers not only inspired the composers of their day to create new roles, but also began to take on roles originally created for sopranos that demanded both strong low and middle registers and powerful high notes. Parts such as Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal and Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, though first sung by sopranos, are now mezzo territory. Meanwhile, singers such as Janet Baker had many new roles created for them, most notably by Britten and Walton.

Today the mezzo-soprano continues to be in the ascendant, with the heroines of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Maw’s Sophie’s Choice, Adès’s The Tempest (Miranda) and Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (Ariadne) all written for this vocal type. As Verdi realized back in the 1850s, if you’re looking to create a sensual and emotionally complex female character, the wide range and warm tones of the mezzo-soprano voice are irresistible.

Il trovatore runs 1 December 2016-8 February 2017.
Tickets go on sale to Friends of Covent Garden on 21 September 2016. General booking opens on 18 October 2016.

Mozart’s final years were hobbled by debt, but he certainly wasn’t short of work. The premieres of his last two operas came almost on top of one another, La clemenza di Tito on 6 September 1791 and Die Zauberflöte a few weeks later on the 30th. Mozart had probably mostly finished Die Zauberflöte in July, and put it to one side as he speedily wrote Tito in time for the new emperor’s coronation. So Die Zauberflöte is perhaps only nominally a final opera – and yet its bewitching (if sometimes befuddling) story and achingly beautiful music have made Die Zauberflöte one of Mozart’s best-loved operas. Final opera or not, it’s an enchanting showcase of the composer’s genius.

Gioachino Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, 1829

Rossini was 32 when he moved to Paris in 1824. Here he wrote the sophisticated occasion piece Il viaggio a Reims to celebrate the coronation of the French king Charles X, adapted two of his Neapolitan operas for French audiences, and wrote two original works for the Paris Opéra: the comic Le Comte Ory in 1828, and the masterful Guillaume Tell in 1829. Today we see Guillaume Tell as the summit of Rossini’s career – a work of genius that fused French and Italian traditions in an innovative and highly idiosyncratic way, which not only anticipated the development of the hugely popular French grand opera but would also influence composers as diverse as Wagner and Offenbach. Rossini seems to have felt the same: he never composed another opera after Guillaume Tell.

Georges Bizet’s Carmen, 1875

Bizet’s biography reads like a catalogue of missed opportunities. His musical gifts were evident from an early age, but he spent much of his adult life scraping a living as a transcriber and rehearsal pianist. He abandoned many operatic projects, and the handful that did come to fruition rarely found success. Carmen received more performances during Bizet’s lifetime than any of his other works – but by his tragically early death on the evening of the 33rd performance on 3 June 1875, the opera was still deemed no more than a moderate succès de scandale. Three months later a new production in Vienna would launch Carmen on its way to becoming one of the most popular operas ever written.

Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, 1882

Wagner began work on his final opera as early as 1845, nearly forty years before its eventual premiere. The intervening years saw Wagner fundamentally alter the musical landscape, along the way gaining acolytes and raising hackles in equal measure. He also realized a long-cherished ambition to build an opera house specifically devoted to his own works, in Bayreuth, albeit at ruinous expense. Parsifal, a Bühnenweihfestspiel (‘stage-consecrating festival play’), was written specifically for the new theatre, and Wagner intended that it be performed only there for at least the next thirty years. He didn’t live to see his embargo broken after only a few years, as the world clamoured to hear this enigmatic, awe-inspiring final statement from an operatic master.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, 1893

Verdi wrote his first comic opera, Un giorno di regno, in 1840. It was an unmitigated disaster, and almost led the young composer to renounce music altogether. Twenty-five operas and 53 years later, he decided to give it another go and produced Falstaff, arguably opera’s greatest comedy. Buoyed by the success of Otello, which Verdi wrote in collaboration with librettist Arrigo Boito, Verdi followed Boito’s suggestion to adapt The Merry Wives of Windsor. He and Boito worked together to craft a vivid portrait of Shakespeare’s scandalous, lecherous, life-loving knight, in a work of glorious vitality – an ebullient final testament from the 80-year-old composer.

Parsifal tells the story of the Grail Community who are in anguish because their ruler Amfortas bears an incurable wound. Only a ‘poor fool, enlightened by compassion’ can save the ailing ruler. A mysterious youth arrives knowing little about himself, it is Parsifal - could he be the person to bring salvation to Amfortas?

Wagner first read the poem that inspired Parsifal in 1845 but the opera was many years in the making, only receiving its premiere four decades later at the Bayreuth Festival in 1882.

Langridge’s new production for The Royal Opera marked the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth.

Wagner never heard his first completed opera, Die Feen (The Fairies), and his next, Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), was performed only once in his lifetime, where it was an unmitigated disaster. His first success was Rienzi, first performed in Dresden in 1842 after Wagner returned from a dire interlude in Paris. Six hours long, replete with ballets, grand choruses, processions and marches, and with possibly the most terrifying tenor part in Wagner's canon, Rienzi is Wagner's bid to out-grand opera French grand opera. While for modern audiences that might be something of a Pyrrhic victory, in the 19th century Rienzi was Wagner's most performed opera – somewhat to the composer's embarrassment.

Arriving into maturity: Der fliegende Holländer

Der fliegende Holländer’s premiere in Dresden a few months later didn't match Rienzi's success at the time, but musically it marks Wagner’s maturity. Wagner had sold his scenario to Léon Pillet, director of Paris Opéra, in 1841, but to the composer’s horror Pillet commissioned the score from Pierre-Louis Dietsch instead. The premiere of Dietsch's Le Vaisseau fantôme in Paris, just as rehearsals for Der fliegende Holländer began, prompted Wagner to introduce some late revisions, including a speedy relocation from Scotland to the Norwegian coast. Wagner had conceived the opera as a single-act curtain opener for Paris; though he later expanded it into three scenes he continued to think of it as one continuous whole. He was convinced to insert two intervals for the premiere, but in Cosima Wagner's 1901 Bayreuth production she ran the opera without break – a practice followed by many modern productions, including The Royal Opera's. Throughout his life Wagner returned to Der fliegende Holländer. Today, opera houses tend to use either the earliest version or the most definite revisions of 1860.

Understanding 'melos': Tannhäuser

Tannhäuser has the dubious honour of two failed premieres. It was received with bewilderment on its first showing in Dresden on 19 October 1845 – largely because the singers were not up to the score’s singular demands. By now Wagner had refined his ideas of melos (a unique melody essential to each composition) and the result was a particularly challenging role for the titular hero. When in 1861 Napoleon III invited Wagner to stage Tannhäuser in Paris the composer took the opportunity to introduce some significant revisions, including the orgiastic Venusberg ballet that opens the opera. But the riotous Jockey Club de Paris, political opponents of Wagner's patrons and offended at Wagner’s relocation of the ballet from its traditional place after the first interval, were rowdily disruptive, and after three mortifying performances Wagner cancelled the run. He made further revisions to the ‘Paris’ version for an 1875 performance in Vienna, keeping the ballet and dovetailing the overture into the opening of the opera. It’s this version that is most often performed today – though to his death Wagner remained dissatisfied with the work.

King Ludwig II and the Swan Knight: Lohengrin

Lohengrin was first performed on 28 August 1850, though Wagner, exiled in Switzerland after backing the losing side in a political coup, didn't hear it performed until 1861. The premiere was conducted instead by Liszt and was received well, despite the perennial problem of singers not up to their parts. Lohengrin, begun in the winter of 1841–2, was the first fruit of Wagner's obsession with the legend of the Holy Grail. The opera was to have a massive influence – including on Bavarian architecture. Wagner's later patron, the beyond-eccentric King Ludwig II, was inspired in part by Lohengrin to term himself the Swan Knight and build the unfinished fantasy palace Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone), which he dedicated to Wagner.

Epic opera: Der Ring des Nibelungen

A cycle of four operas, clocking in at 15 hours in total,Der Ring des Nibelungen is one of the most challenging works for an opera company to perform. In it Wagner created a new form of music drama, based on the principles he set out in his 1851 book-length essay Oper und Drama. Condemning what he saw as the commercialism of his contemporaries, he proposed a pure art modelled on his understanding of Ancient Greek theatre, through which society would be served and bettered. In the Ring this philosophy becomes a union between music and text now known as the leitmotif structure. Wagner completely eschewed the number-based format of traditional opera, associating short melodies with dramatic icons and emotions, weaving them together in a continuous composition. The plots are based on Icelandic, Scandinavian and German myths, though Wagner significantly reworked numerous legends to create an entirely original story in which the themes of redemption and sacrifice, constants throughout his mature work, loom large. Though he composed the four operas in order, starting with Das Rheingold in 1853 and finishing Götterdämmerung in 1872, Wagner prepared the texts in reverse, beginning Siegfrieds Tod (which eventually became Götterdämmerung) as early as 1848. At the order of Ludwig II and deeply against Wagner's wishes Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were performed in 1869 and 1870 in Munich, in performances that fell far below Wagner's expectations. The complete Ring cycle was first performed at the inaugural Bayreuth Festival in 1876 on four consecutive nights.

Tristan und Isolde

In the middle of composing the Ring Wagner set aside Siegfried to write Tristan und Isolde, which in the 20th century became arguably his best-known and most influential work – Wagner himself quoted it explicitly in later operas Die Meistersinger and Parsifal. His chief inspiration was his love for Mathilde Wesendonck, poet and the wife of Wagner's generous patron Otto, who in 1857 had given Wagner the villa in which he wrote Tristan. The premiere was serially delayed; one performance had to be postponed at a few hours’ notice after the twin disasters of Isolde losing her voice and bailiffs arriving to confiscate Wagner's possessions. On its eventual premiere on 10 June 1865 Tristan und Isolde created musical history, from the very start of the Prelude with its famous ‘Tristan chord’ (in jazz, a half-diminished 7th). It wasn’t the chord itself that shocked but Wagner's entirely original manipulation of harmony; responding to Tristan and Isolde's yearning and tragedy he creates an aching score where musical resolution is continually evaded, in a language far removed from the diatonic traditions that had governed Western music for centuries.

A return to comedy: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Wagner had conceived of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, his only comic work beside Das Liebesverbot, in 1845 as a pendant to Tannhäuser, following the Greek model of pairing a tragedy with a satyr play. Recurring musical motifs, as in all Wagner's mature operas, still form the foundation of the melodic material, but quite unlike Tristan and the Ring the opera is structured largely in traditional numbers. The score is coloured with an archaic, modal twist, and for long stretches the vocal lines seem almost improvisatory. In the 1860s Wagner had further developed his ideas of the purity and superiority of German culture, which ultimately would be codified in his 1871 tract Über die Bestimmung der Oper (The purpose of opera). It's partly this that inspired him to meld the innovations of his musical language with more historic forms. Wagner also continued to develop his response to the work of the philosopher Schopenhauer and the renunciation of the will, most fully expressed in Hans Sachs's Act III monologue 'Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn'.

A final masterpiece: Parsifal

Wagner's final work, Parsifal, was the only of his operas to be written with direct experience of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Its staging demands are extraordinary even for Wagner, calling for tiers of choirs arranged over a high dome. Wagner's source was Wolfram von Eschenbach's setting of the legend of Perceval, knight of the Grail, which he began to adapt into a libretto as early as 1845. The verse is his freest, and in it the scenario's explicitly Christian context merges with Buddhist ideals and Schopenhauerian self-abnegation into a meditation on compassion. Wagner’s text allows no simple interpretation, and neither does his score. The vocal lines range from declamatory recitative to expansive melody; the use of motifs is infinitely subtle and yields different interpretations with each listening. As with Meistersinger, the tonality is broadly diatonic and incorporates elements of ancient music: the ‘Dresden Amen’, a common congregational response, here becomes a transcendent expression of the Grail, and a simple four-note bell motif signaling the Grail chamber provides material for two immense transition scenes. Wagner called the opera a Bühnenweihfestspiel – a stage-consecrating festival play – and intended it only for Bayreuth. Ludwig II was the first to break the 30-year embargo in a private performance in Munich just a few years after the premiere. The next performance outside Bayreuth was by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1903.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzmViYZqwLU

It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Wagner’s mature works on the course of music. But his music never seems to become familiar. His operas – complex, immersive and astonishingly entertaining – continue to entrance.

The production is staged with generous philanthropic support from Simon and Virginia Robertson, Peter and Fiona Espenhahn, Malcolm Herring, the Tannhäuser Production Syndicate and the Wagner Circle.

Tristan und Isolde is a co-production with Houston Grand Opera and is given with generous philanthropic support from Peter and Fiona Espenhahn, Malcolm Herring, Bertrand and Elisabeth Meunier and Lindsay and Sarah Tomlinson.

Der fliegende Holländer is given with generous philanthropic support from Marina Hobson OBE and the Wagner Production Syndicate.

Francis Poulenc took the opportunity with the nearly all-female cast for his opera Dialogues des Carmélites to pay homage to some of his favourite operatic women. We take a look at the five models that inspired his Carmelite leading ladies:

Sister Constance – inspired by Zerlina from Mozart's Don Giovanni (soubrette)
Sister Constance is the youngest nun. She is blessed with a radiant happiness, even when facing the nuns' terrible fate. Her light, agile voice has its precursor in Zerlina, Mozart's bubbly peasant girl. Though Constance would never dream of getting up to the same shenanigans as Zerlina, her exuberance and optimism make them spiritual sisters.

Mother Marie – inspired by Amneris from Verdi's Aida (mezzo-soprano)
Mother Marie is a pillar of strength in the convent community. Though shy and reserved, she is devoted to the sisters in her care and would make any sacrifice for them – when Blanche runs away it is Mother Marie who goes to find her, and attempts to keep her from harm. Verdi's jealous princess Amneris has no such kindness, but her passion and single-minded determination can be heard in the richness of Mother Marie's velvety mezzo-soprano.

Madame de Croissy – inspired by Kundry from Wagner's Parsifal (contralto)
Madame de Croissy is the Prioress of the convent when Blanche arrives. She is strict and has high expectations for her sisters, but her loving compassion becomes quickly apparent in her first interview with Blanche. However, her death at the end of Act I is filled with pain, her powerful voice groaning and railing against God's cruelty. Although Poulenc has significantly decreased the vocal range of Wagner's sorceress to represent the Prioress's old age, her mix of authority and anguish owes a clear debt to the doomed Kundry.

Madame Lidoine – inspired by Desdemona from Verdi's Otello (lirico spinto soprano)
Madame Lidoine is the new prioress. It is she who must guide the community of nuns when the police of the French Revolution arrest them; it is she who eventually leads them to the scaffold. Poulenc writes her music of great simplicity and beauty, instantly creating a sense of her calmness and serenity. Verdi's angelic heroine Desdemona shares Madame Lidoine's faith and goodness, and her Act IV 'Ave Maria' is directly referenced in Poulenc's own setting of the prayer for Madame Lidoine and her sisters in Act II – anticipating both women's needless and brutal deaths.

Blanche – inspired by Thaïs from Massenet's Thaïs (lyric soprano)
Poulenc's heroine Blanche is the spiritual heart of Dialogues des Carmélites. We feel her love for the old Prioress, her fear of death and her horror at the fate awaiting the community – until she finally chooses to sacrifice herself with them. Her breathless agitation throughout much of the opera recalls Massenet's writing for Thaïs in Act II of his opera, where this courtesan – so cool and controlled in the first act – suddenly realizes how vulnerable she is. Thaïs's transformation in the final act into a self-denying saint is compressed by Poulenc into a tiny, simple Gloria sung by Blanche on the scaffold, filled with grace and beauty.

Dialogues des Carmélites runs 29 May–11 June 2014. Tickets are still available.The production, originally from De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, is given with generous philanthropic support from Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet, The Taylor Family Foundation and The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

As part of our series of recommended recordings from the Royal Opera House Shop, this month we take a look at releases from two great singers and a conductor with strong connections to the Royal Opera House.

Juan Diego Flórez breaks new ground with L’Amour, his tenor still as centred and thrillingly agile, but now showing a touch of steel that - as recently hinted - will allow him to move into a broader repertoire. L’Amour is the kind of record you thought might never be made again – a recital of French lyric arias, previously so much the territory of Nicolai Gedda and Alfredo Kraus, but here superbly sung by Florez and showing immense promise for some heavier roles: his two excepts from Werther make one really want to hear him restore this role to its rightful voice. This is an hour of unalloyed pleasure.

Francois Girard’s production of Parsifal at the Met does not stake new dramatic or interpretive milestones, instead he allows the story to unfold organically in vistas of breathtaking beauty that echo the music without dictating its intent.

The cast fielded here could have made Parsifal work on a bare stage, but allied to Girard’s hieratic symbols and ever-shifting projections, it grows into something of overwhelming beauty and power: the last moments are, as any great Parsifal should be, transcendently lovely. Kaufmann’s Parsifal must now be without competition: singing with immense strength and dramatic intensity, he is exceptional in all his key moments, and never less than immersed in the whole - this is no star turn. René Pape’s Gurnemanz is a known entity and again he leads the field today in this marathon role, singing with beauty and detail throughout, Peter Mattei towers as the ideal Amfortas, Evgeny Nikitin excels as Klingsor, and Katarina Dalayman offers a Kundry that is perhaps a little below the achievements of her colleagues but is nonetheless superb. Daniele Gatti conducts, taking the Met Orchestra places it has not been for a while. I would urge you to own this Parsifal: it is a very special experience.

Jonas Kaufmann’s take on Winterreise might split opinion: those who will hear it live at the Royal Opera House in April will doubtless make their own minds up, but as an audio experience, Kaufman seems to me ideal in this rare outing onto the lieder stage. His gritty tenor perfectly mirrors the angst-ridden narration, the voice opens up thrillingly at key moments, and above all the drama is seen as a linear experience: each song is given its own treatment but not at the expense of the bigger work. Is he too theatrical with it? Perhaps, if you prefer your lieder more intimate, but for me Kaufmann catches both the naivety and despair central to the text and to Schubert’s agonized settings. Helmut Deutsch is a perfect accompanist, supporting, colouring and adding to the implacable flow of the cycle.